Libya: 'loads of Saif Gaddafi's lot live round here in Hampstead'

It is unlikely that Saif Gaddafi will trouble himself with a call to Barnet police about the squatters currently occupying his £10 million property.

As far as the neighbours are aware, he hasn't visited the eight bedroom house since buying it.

"But then we keep ourselves to ourselves round here," says one resident. "And loads of his lot have grand homes in the area." His lot? "Middle Eastern dictators."

We could not find any despots or tyrants in Hampstead Garden Suburb yesterday, but it is home to a lot of celebrities. Jonathan Ross is around the corner. Richard and Judy live one street away. Their new neighbours as of Wednesday this week are a mishmash group of Libyan activists and squatters who have never been to the beleaguered country but are aware that it is somewhere in Africa.

Those occupying the house are clear about their aim: return it to the Libyan people. But their message is confused on most other fronts. Some say they belong to an outfit called Topple the Tyrants. Others refuse to be labelled at all. How many people are inside the building? Thirty, says one man. "I can't tell you," says another, who could not have grown up further than 200 miles from here. "It's for security reasons."

Some of the group hail from Libya, but the Libyans do not seem to be in control of proceedings and someone tells me that they were initially refused entrance, also due to "security reasons". The man who seems to be in charge has several interesting facial piercings and is called Aussie.

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The house itself is on a road that is best described as Brookside Close for billionaires. It is a Georgian style mansion that looks as if it has been designed by somebody at Lego. You can be in possession of ten million pounds, but you can still not buy taste. There is a swimming pool and sauna but a nice man called Greg tells me they haven't had a chance to use those particular facilities yet. "We have been too busy having meetings," he explains.

Greg tells me that the property has all the mod cons you would expect. There are widescreen televisions, wooden floors, and shiny minimalist chairs. I spot a bright pink sofa through a window, but the squatters won't let us in and even activists have to join a "waiting list" to come and occupy the house. Someone raises the possibility of charging the press to take photographs. There's a little dictatorship going on in north London, and sadly, the Gaddafis would probably be full of admiration for it.